An emotionally authentic representation of the legacy of gun violence.
Rosengren’s middle-grade novel aptly explores the aftermath of a tragedy and its impact on one family.
One evening, Wisconsinite Mackenzie “Mac” Lawrence goes for a run and returns home late for dinner. Although that’s typical behavior for Mac since his father, a paramedic, was shot at Prairie View Mall two years ago, his twin sister Tessa is angry that he’s not at home, and his mother and grandparents fear that he’s gotten into some kind of trouble. Soon after his return, the twins’ mother announces her engagement to her partner, Simon, and Mac becomes enraged, threatening to leave if she goes through with it. Soon, Mac runs away, leaving a striking note on his laptop: “I MEANT WHAT I SAID!” The book then separately follows the close third-person perspectives of Mac and Tessa in alternating chapters. Rosengren offers a story that illustrates how family relationships undergo change following trauma and loss. Specifically, the narrative emphasizes how Tessa and Mac’s once-close relationship has become distant and tense and how each processes their father’s death and their mother’s engagement differently. Rosengren uses subtle linking strategies—such as a motif of darkness at the end of one section and the beginning of another—to show how the two main characters remain connected. The alternating storytelling style also works well to move the plot forward, although there are moments when Mac’s reactions feel extreme, and Tessa is always cast as the maternal, responsible person in her family. Overall, though, the work effectively shows how the twins’ relationships with their father have shaped how each teen thinks. At the end, Rosengren ties up loose ends in a satisfying manner.
An emotionally authentic representation of the legacy of gun violence.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-59598-904-8
Page Count: 235
Publisher: Three Towers Press
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
An entertaining take on family values, Wimpy Kid style.
A summer vacation turns out to be anything but relaxing for Greg and a teeming horde of Heffleys.
Gramma declines the offer of a grand birthday celebration, saying that “what would make her REALLY happy is if everyone else went to Ruttyneck Island”—though she prepares individual packs of her legendary meatballs. (“You knew exactly how much Gramma likes you by how many meatballs you got.”) A gaggle of Heffley relatives and a dog stuff themselves into a small beach house, where overcrowding, personality conflicts, and simmering resentments become just some of the ingredients in a rolling boil of sitcom-style catastrophes, not to mention questionable decisions ranging from leaving the kids to make dinner unsupervised to labeling a cooler “HUMAN ORGANS” to keep random passersby from helping themselves. As usual, Greg supplies the setups in poker-faced journal entries interspersed with black-and-white drawings of slouched figures bearing frowny expressions of dismay or annoyance to cue the laffs. Gramma, it eventually turns out, not only (unsurprisingly) has plans of her own, but is also keeping a shocking secret about those meatballs. To go with the knee-slapping set pieces, Kinney slips in a tasty bit of family lore about how Greg’s parents met, plus droll takes on such low-hanging comedy fruit as restaurant manners, viciously competitive board games, and social media influencers (Greg being one, albeit with zero followers, and his Aunt Veronica’s little dog being another, with 3.8 million).
An entertaining take on family values, Wimpy Kid style. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9781419766954
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
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